The Gifted

2 | Portland, Portland

Anna van Danne was scrolling through social media and shoveling forkfuls of cake into her mouth when she heard it: the rumble of an engine pulling up in front of the house. The old Victorian two-story was hidden in the countryside of Ohio—the only people who showed up here came with intent, not by mistake, but she wasn't expecting guests. Heat flared up in her cheeks. A few minutes later, and she would've been out hunting with a shotgun at her side, but no, a guest had shown up while she was gorging on cake. Even if they wouldn't know it, she was still embarrassed.

Her hunting boots clicked against the marble as she headed down the grand staircase. Hints of her style were hidden all throughout the mansion: the red silk that weaved in between the railing pillars, the macabre paintings that had replaced portraits of old British royalty, the thousand-year old vase depicting a sacrifice. A majority of the Enhanced lived like nomads, traveling from place to place in vans or, if they refused to use motels, in large motorhomes. Anna had chosen to live in the van Danne house—as the only one in her family to make that choice, she lived alone and was free to do whatever she pleased with the Victorian.

Anna stood on the porch with her arms crossed, her shotgun within reach just inside the house if she needed it. As much as the cult of the Enhanced promoted peace and unity among their members, business got ugly sometimes.

The door of the car opened, and the first thing out was a vulture-tipped cane that dug into the dirt as the man holding it stepped out. Mikhail van Danne straightened as much as his damaged back would let him and looked up at his childhood home fondly, his smile widening when he saw his daughter. As he noticed the phone held tightly in her hand, the smile collapsed into a frown. Anna was one of the few who had a smartphone and kept up with the internet.

She was Anna van Danne, the least cult-ish of the entire cult.

They sat on opposite ends of the dining table. He swirled the wine in his glass but never sipped from it. She mutilated the rest of her cake with her fork but didn't eat it. The tension between them was too thick for a knife to cut; no, to fix the issues between these two, lasers would be more appropriate.

"Why are you here?" she asked finally.

"When was the last time you ate?"

Anna gestured to her dessert. "I'm eating right now, see?"

"That isn't what I meant."

Anna counted back the months until the details of her last victim resurfaced. Small Gift, but tasty. Blood on snow, because the young girl had tripped and fallen and cut her hand on a sharp rock in a futile attempt to run away. A few seconds of gasping and twitching and then blank, dead eyes. "Three years."

Mikhail pressed his lips together, clear with his disappointment. "You seem to have forgotten who we are," he said.

"So maybe I prefer a more private, non-devouring lifestyle," she said simply, waving her fork in the air. "What's wrong with that?"